A year after giving support to the positioning of Turkish Karpowership vessels in the port of Ngqura, Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane has come out in favour of fracking the Karoo in order to meet the province’s energy needs.In his state of the province address Mabuyane said “we welcome the announcement by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy that legal exploration of South Africa’s shale gas endowments can go ahead to establish its commercial viability. “We support that exploration of the shale gas.”In 2022 he announced that the Eastern Cape had been earmarked for two investment projects on liquified natural gas located in the Coega SEZ. “The two projects, Karpowership and Mulilo Total Coega have a combined capacity of 650 Megawatts which will ensure energy security for investors in the Coega precinct.”There has been some progress on the Coega gas fired power station.“The first environment authorisations which include Mossel Bay and Coega have been gazetted and are paving the way to build a 400km gas pipeline from Mossel Bay to the 1 000 MW gas power station in Coega,” he said.In January 2023 the Coega Development Corporation announced it had started the environmental impact analysis (EIA) process for the R8 billion plant. Mabuyane also called for the revival of the plans for a nuclear plant at Thyspunt near Jeffreys Bay. “This is also an opportune time for the country to be decisive on building the nuclear power plant in Thyspunt,” he said.
